


Invisible

by Not_Your_Deers



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 08:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18567223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_Your_Deers/pseuds/Not_Your_Deers
Summary: Klaus Hargreeeves is invisible, and he doesn't mind. Until he isn't, and he does.Disclaimer: We don't own the Umbrella Academy. We wish we did, but we don't. If we did, we wouldn't be writing fanfic, we'd be making this stuff canon.





	Invisible

**Author's Note:**

> *Warnings: Implied Suicide/Suicidal Thoughts, Drug & Alcohol Abuse, All The Other Hargreeves Sibling Baggage*

For as long as Klaus could remember, he’d been Forgotten. Ignored. Invisible. He’d never minded though. Maybe if his family forgot him, the ghosts would (the ones outside his head, sure, but the ones inside it too). 

By the time Klaus was ten, though his name was Four back then, he was already starting on the path which, twenty years later, he’d barely escaped. Ben, Vanya, Diego, and Five were his support system back then. They stopped him from going over the edge. He could always trust Ben to cheer him up, Vanya to listen to his worries, and Diego to tell him to “get a grip, before I stab you in the leg”. Five was a little different. He wasn’t always there, sure, and he could be an arrogant bastard at times, but Klaus relied on him just as much as (or more than, he sometimes thought) the rest.

After Five left (died, ran away, vanished, whatever you want to call it), Vanya left too. And the Seance, whose name was Klaus by then, was left with only two. He was sad, of course, to lose his wonderful, sweet sister, but he still had his brothers. Ben - ever kind, ever loyal, ever honest and smart - and Diego - tough and brave and deadly. Klaus loved them. And he leant on them more and more, as the ghosts grew louder and louder.

And then he found Ben, covered in blood in the bathroom down the hall, and only one saw little Number Four. Only one noticed when he shook under his father’s gaze, and when he woke screaming, nearly as loud as his ghosts. Diego was always there. When he couldn’t breathe, and his head was exploding, Diego was there. When he lost himself in the voices, Diego was there. And Klaus was seen.

Diego left when they were seventeen. And Klaus was alone. He didn’t care, though, because he had his freedom and his life, and that was all that mattered. And - he told himself sometimes, on the bad nights when he couldn’t keep going - he wasn’t really alone. There was always someone there. A different guy, or girl, or something else, in his bed. A new dealer or a new therapist or a new “friend”. And he was happy, he was sure.

Ben comes back to Klaus when he’s twenty. It takes a while, though, to see him. When you’re drugged out of your mind, and barely know where you’re going to sleep that night, it’s hard to spot your ghost brother coming back from the dead to haunt you. It’s only once he wakes up in a rehab center - again - that Klaus finds him. People wondered, probably, why that crazy looking dude in the feather boa burst out crying in the middle of a game of chess. But it’s normal enough, they suppose, compared to everything else about this guy.

Even after Ben, and after Sir Reginald kicks the bucket ten years later, Klaus is still invisible. Four years of silence, and the inability to touch each other, creates a divide between the brothers that was never there before. Klaus wonders bitterly some nights (often the same nights he found himself covered in blood on the bathroom floor all over again), if Ben hid from him those four years.

It becomes clear just how invisible the Seance is when he gets kidnapped and no one realises. It was the lady cop, he learns later, that eventually let his darling brother to find him. And then he runs away, and no one looks.

It’s the war that teaches Klaus how to live again. Dave says that’s ironic, when Klaus tells him, that a place full of death brought him to life. The soldier doesn’t mind though, and neither does Klaus, because they’re together, they see each other, and they’re happy. And for ten months, Klaus doesn’t feel invisible.

He’s sober and he’s happy. A strange combination. And the screaming ghosts are still around - worse than ever, in fact - but Ben’s laughter, and Dave’s kisses, and the sound of shots and explosions drown them out. And he becomes a good soldier, by the end of their time together. But then he loses it all. A single shot. And Dave is gone. Klaus finds himself with blood on his shirt and his loved one in his arms, for a second time.

And Number Four goes back. He doesn’t want to, not really, but there was no one here for him anymore. Besides, Ben wouldn’t stop bugging him about it. When he returns, only a day has passed, but he hopes a little that they’ll have noticed he’s gone. It’s the first time in a long time that he’s felt this way.

Five realises what happened immediately, but he’s Five. He sees the science, the numbers, the powers, but not the pain or the love. And Diego? Klaus feels a little like something happens there - or did happen, or will happen - but nothing does. Luther doesn’t see it either, but that’s expected, he supposes. And it’s wrong. He knows that now.

He’s the lookout, again. But at least he has Ben now. Like he never did before. Klaus doesn’t care (same as always), but it’s more of an act, this time. Or at least, that’s what Ben says. Shots. He hears them immediately. But, why should he care? They never cared for him. That, and he can barely keep himself from shaking at the sound. It used to comfort him, but now he can hardly breathe. He hasn’t felt this bad, this sober, in years.

Ben yells. And he moves. No matter how angry and scared the Seance feels, he’ll do anything for his “little” brother. He runs down the aisles of the theatre. And for once he’s glad to be hidden, because no one seems to fire at him. Klaus can’t help but marvel at the music, too. Vanya is so much stronger, more powerful and more beautiful than he’s seen her since before Five left. Before all of this. And he’s proud.

They’re losing, he can tell, because while Number Four was never a soldier, he was smart, and a strategist at heart. And he can’t bear it. He doesn’t want to lose them all again (not that he ever really had them to begin with). So he takes a wild gamble. Klaus looks at Ben, eyes wide and scared. He clenches his fists, and slams his eyes shut. They don’t open until the screaming stops. There’s been enough war and blood in one life for him.

And when they do open, they see. And they are seen. Klaus can hardly believe it, but they’re looking at him. Not looking through him, not looking for something more. Diego, Five, Ben, Allison, even Vanya and Luther. Looking at him. Seeing him. And he laughs.

But it doesn’t end there. It’s only the start for him. He fights alongside his brothers, and loses alongside them. And when Vanya is freed, he smiles alongside them too. Klaus sees the apocalypse coming then, though. He almost doesn’t tell his siblings. But Ben has seen it too, and he knows he needs to speak up.

They listen. He wishes they didn’t. He grabs his tags and waits. The world is ending, and for once he has something to lose. Dave’s memory, and Ben’s. His old relationships with Diego and Five and Vanya, that are coming back. His new relationships with Allison and Luther, who he’d never really cared for before.

Then Five has an idea (of course he does, he’s Five, he’s a genius). And Klaus lets go of his tags. Of Dave. Of memories and fear and secrets and death. He grabs Luther’s hand, and Diego’s. He feels happy for once. Because he has a future, and a family, and a life. Not the Seance, not Number Four. Just Klaus. Safe and hopeful and seen.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you liked the darker tone compared to some of our other fics. Comments are appreciated.
> 
> -The Slytherin


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